Two events, designed by Philip II. to aggrandize the power of Spain at the expense of its neighbors, were eventually the means of arousing enmity against it to such an extent that the opposition of private adventurers was suddenly backed up by the full weight of the most rapidly progressing peoples and governments in the Old World.
Many previous efforts had been made to unite the crowns of Spain and Portugal, but hitherto all had failed. The heroic death of Sebastian, however, in 1580, left the throne of Portugal without a direct heir, and among the numerous claimants was Philip, who overreached all his competitors. He was probably even then meditating that descent upon the liberties of England which resulted, eight years later, in the dispatch of the renowned Armada, and the writing of one of the most brilliant pages of English history. Success in the one instance, no less than failure in the other, created the most deadly foes that Spain ever had to encounter, until the persistent antagonism of Holland and England reduced it at last to a miserable shadow of its former self.
Philip’s ruling passion was an intense bigotry, and from the moment he assumed sway in Spain and the Low Countries, he sought to exterminate every trace of the Reformed faith. That brought him into conflict with the Dutch, whose principal port and city of Amsterdam was fast concentrating within itself the trade that Bruges and Antwerp had once commanded as the principal marts of the Hanseatic League. As Portugal extended its conquests in the East, Lisbon displaced Venice and Genoa, and became the great emporium of all Eastern produce, whence Amsterdam drew its supplies for distribution throughout northern Europe. With the object, therefore, of destroying Dutch trade, Philip closed the port of Lisbon to it in 1594, fondly imagining that that would ruin his rebellious subjects, and enforce submission to his will.
He had entirely mistaken Dutch character, however; for in the following year the services were enlisted of Cornelius Hautmann, who had been a pilot in the Portuguese service; and he conducted the first Dutch expedition round the Cape of Good Hope on its way to open up a direct trade with the Spice Islands and India, which of course had become the property of Spain along with its own Philippines. Thus modestly was laid the foundation of the Dutch Empire in the East Indies, and when Portugal regained its freedom in 1640, under the House of Braganza, it found itself stripped of most of its former colonies, which were never to be restored.
Not content merely with retaining their former trade, the Dutch sought to extend it in other directions; and the incorporation of their East India Company in 1602 was followed by that of the West India Company in 1621, the operations of which were to embrace the west coast of Africa as well as the whole of Spanish America, in which the Brazils had then to be included. They had been preceded many years earlier by the English, who commenced operations in good earnest some time before the date of the Armada; indeed, those two great figures in English naval history, Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake, had then already performed their greatest exploits. As early as 1572, the latter gave a good account of himself on the Spanish Main, but his most daring feat was accomplished in 1578, when he sailed through the Straits of Magellan and appeared off the coast of Peru. Francisco Draques was the terror of Spanish America, and his was the name used to frighten Spanish-American children when they were naughty.
A new danger thus became apparent, as the Spaniards had never dreamed before of reaching their West Coast possessions by the southern route. Lest other foreign adventurers should follow in the wake, an expedition under Pedro Sarmiento was dispatched from Chili to explore the Straits and the adjoining territory, with the view, if practicable, of founding a strong colony and erecting substantial fortifications. Sarmiento’s zeal outran his discretion, and after accomplishing his task he sailed for Spain, where he gave an exaggerated account, not only of the danger of leaving the Straits unprotected, but of the ease with which they could be rendered impregnable to all unfriendly visitors. A colony consisting of about four hundred souls was actually sent out in 1528, though from the very first it met with nothing but dire misfortune.
The captain-general commissioned to take charge of the undertaking, Diego Flores, disliked the job, and began by chartering the worst ships he could find. His lieutenant, Sarmiento, was more discreet in the choice of the embryo colonists, most of whom were skilled mechanics; but the fleet had scarcely left San Lucar on the outward voyage, when half of them were shipwrecked and drowned. Though replaced, disaster continued to follow upon disaster, the voyage being very much a repetition of the previous one made by Magellan, only in this instance the commander was himself the leading obstructionist. Eventually, rather more than two hundred souls sailed from the Bio de la Plata, and forty-five of these were drowned ere the Straits were reached. All but eight of the survivors subsequently perished, and the last of them was taken off in 1589 by the “Delight,” commanded by Sir John Cavendish, who appropriately named the spot where he found him “Port Famine.”
The advent of the English and Dutch, followed half a century later by the French, led to the settlement of some of the unoccupied islands. They rapidly became something more than mere provisioning depots, though several of them, and notably the island of Tortuga, were nothing else than the lairs of desperate crews of pirates, as reckless of their own lives as of those who were unfortunate fall into their clutches. But Barbadoes and St. Christopher, St. Eustatius and Curaçoa, Martinique and Guadalupe, became the center of something more legitimate, if quite as illegal, as sinking galleons and purloining their treasure, though that business was never missed either when the opportunity presented itself; and the Dutch West India Company alone is said to have been responsible for the capture of between five and six hundred Spanish vessels.
The English secured their first foothold in the neighborhood by occupying the Bermudas in 1621, though this hardly brought them into direct contact with the West Indies. This was speedily followed by settlements in some of the unoccupied islands further south. Barbadoes was taken possession of in 1625, and the same year St. Christopher, or St. Kitts, as it is now called, was divided between the English and French. The former continued to add to their territory, taking Nevis in 1628, Antigua and Montserrat in 1632; and all these islands are so essentially English, as to prove conclusively that, although once nominally owned by Spain, Spanish influence was never exerted in them.
From 1650 until the period of his death, Oliver Cromwell, having established his authority at home, pursued an active foreign policy, and it was only natural that he should find himself in conflict with Spain, whose maxims of government, both civil and religious, were so utterly at variance with his. Thus, in 1654, a somewhat formidable fleet, under the command of the admirals Penn and Venables, sailed for Barbadoes, where they would be ready for any emergency. Early the following year they made a descent upon Hispaniola, selecting the capital, San Domingo, as the object of attack. On the approach of the ships, the inhabitants, white and black alike, fled inland, but the affair was sadly mismanaged and somehow miscarried. Not wishing the expedition to prove a complete failure, the admirals set sail for the adjoining island of Jamaica, which did not then contain, at the outside, more than fifteen hundred whites, and perhaps as many blacks. This time, no difficulty was experienced, and the island was taken formal possession of, this being the first loss of occupied territory inflicted upon Spain, as well as the most important acquisition ever made in the West Indies by England. In 1658 the Spaniards attempted to drive the intruders out but failed, and in 1670 a treaty was entered into between the two countries, in which Spain recognized the rights of England both in Jamaica and the smaller islands of which possession had been previously taken.